You shall not commit adultery

This is the seventh post in a series of ten dealing with The Ten Commandments. The content comes from “Basic Christianity”written by John Stott.

Again, the commandment has a far wider application than just to unfaithfulness in marriage. It includes any sort of sex outside the marriage relationship for which it was designed. It includes flirting, experimenting and solitary experience. It also includes all sexual perversions, for although men and woman are not responsible for a perverted instinct, they are for its indulgence. It includes selfish demands within wedlock, and many, if not all, divorces. It includes the deliberate reading of pornographic literature and giving in to impure fantasies. Jesus made this clear when he said, ” everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Just as to entertain murderous thoughts in the heart is to commit murder, so to entertain adulterous thoughts in the heart is to commit adultery. This commandment in fact embraces every abuse of a sacred and beautiful gift from God.